We are rethinking the conditions for genuine, widespread, and sustainable prosperity.

The Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative forges collaborations across fields to reframe the study of political and economic life. Hard questions are our starting point.

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Events Hosted by BESI

Upcoming Events

Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era

October 9, 2024

4-5:30pm

Social Science Matrix, 8th floor, Social Sciences Building

Political polarization may not be new, but the burgeoning mismatch between the U.S. Constitution and our current nationalized, partisan politics indeed marks an urgent crisis. BESI is proud to co-sponsor this book panel on Berkeley Political Science professors Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler’s Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized […]

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Free and Equal: What Would a Just Society Look Like?

October 17, 2024

4-5:30pm

8th floor Social Sciences Building

Join us as philosopher and economist Daniel Chandler (LSE) discusses his recent book and its blueprint for social and economic justice. Taking philosopher John Rawls’s humane and egalitarian liberalism as his starting point, Chandler builds a powerful case for a new progressive agenda that would fundamentally reshape our societies for the better.  October 17th, 2024 […]

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AI, Markets, and Economics

October 22, 2024

1-2:30pm (please note updated time)

8th floor, Social Sciences Building

BESI is delighted to announce a talk by Professor Dame Diane Coyle. In addition her groundbreaking research on themes of progress and productivity and service as former advisor to the UK Treasury, she has held a number of public service roles including Vice Chair of the BBC Trust (2006-2014) and member of the UK Competition […]

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Seizing the Means of Prediction: How Finance Speculates on the Future City

October 31, 2024

3:30-5pm

8th floor, Social Sciences Building

Why do cities adopt certain instruments, and how does the use of particular methods of raising capital affect who benefits from and pays for urban infrastructures? Rachel Weber’s work advances the concept of “financialization” as shorthand for how these tools bring new politics, kinds of knowledge, and risks to bear on policy and development decisions. […]

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Democracy in Default: Finance and the Rise of Neoliberalism in America

November 14, 2024

4-5:30pm

8th floor, Social Sciences Building

Join us as Brian Judge discusses his new book and its bold reappraisal of financialization and the birth of neoliberalism. Judge examines how liberalism disavows the problem of distributive conflict, leaving it vulnerable when those conflicts erupt. When the postwar growth engine began to slow, finance promised a way out of the resulting political impasse, […]

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The Ordinal Society

December 5, 2024

4-5:30pm

8th floor, Social Sciences Building

BESI is excited to host a talk by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology at Berkeley, celebrating the publication of her book, The Ordinal Society, co-authored with Kieran Healy. Nearly every aspect of our lives is measured, ranked, and processed into discrete, standardized units of digital information. Fourcade and Healy argue that technologies of information management, […]

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Designated
Emphasis (DE) in
Political Economy

BESI is proud to support the Designated Emphasis (DE) in Political Economy, through which doctoral students in various disciplines can expand their training in political economy and take classes across UC Berkeley departments.

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